March Against Police Brutality

On March 15th, 2022, the Collectif Opposé à la Brutalité Policière (COBP) held a March to denounce police brutality in Montreal. This day is recognized as the International Day Against Police Brutality. Many Montrealers were in attendance, carrying posters and carrying police slogans. Police followed the protesters on bike and some donning riot gear.

COBP link police brutality to a greater systems of oppression, such as colonialism and racism, which leave many, especially Indigenous people at greater risk of experiencing violence at the hands of police.

The COBP has been holding this event since 1997. 

Many Montrealers have been asking for the City of Montreal to defund the police, meaning the city would reduce money from the police budget and reallocate it towards community organizations that reduce crime at its roots, including organizations which provide opportunities and resources for at-risk youth. 

Other organizations like COBP have sprung up in Montreal, including Defund the Police Coalition, which was in attendance at the march on the fifteenth. 

Ahead of the march, a speech was delivered denouncing the police department’s plan to add nine more surveillance cameras across the city, mostly in neighbourhoods that are low-income and racialized.

The SPVM's website states the locations for the new cameras were chosen upon “following an analysis” of violent crime in the city. Many community groups in the city denounce this, stating that the cameras are expensive and don’t target the root of the problem.

At 7 p.m., the protest was denounced illegal by police after citing violations, as some protesters threw rocks at some officers and at business, as well as lighting fireworks off in garbage cans, said Montreal police spokesperson Manuel Couture.